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I've been sober 21 years. Stopped on my own, no treatment, no outside help, no AA. Finally accepted that I'd never be able to control my drinking (severe blackouts) after trying to for years, and that the only control I could have over my drinking was to just never drink again. Knew I never would again, and I haven't. I consider myself an alcoholic.
Last summer I became friends with met a guy in an outpatient mental health Day Treatment program (severe depression). He got me to start going to AA meetings as a way to help me stop isolating, to get me social interaction with other people who are similar in some ways (alcoholics with some general tendencies that we all have). I was sui depressed for years until day treatment, very isolated, etc. He's told me to just go to the meetings, be of service, engage in fellowship, etc. as I can handle. We're both very heavy intellectuals and had many discussions about the theories of AA and its practices, etc. I'm turned off by most of it, so I don't have a sponsor and am not doing the steps.
I find that in AA, as he's said, people do evaluate others, everyone takes everyone's inventory, judges their program and how they're doing, etc. That drives me crazy, top the point that I find it regnant to judge other people like that (judge with regard to AA principles and practices). It prevents me from wanting to get more deeply involved. I don't want people passing judgment on "my program" and how well I do with keeping in line, my level of functioning, etc. With my deepest strength, I can't stand that sort of thing. It's obnoxious.
So I go to 2 regular meetings a week. Sometimes go to another or to some "event." I have a coffee commitment at one meeting and go out to fellowship after both. I've only made one other real friend thru the program--one of his friends, too--so that's my involvement. NO steps, sponsor, etc.
Having been in some form of therapy for more than these 21 years, that's where I get my personal growth, that's where I confess my misdeeds, wrongdoings, talk about my issues, and get guidance from an outside, quasi-mentor. I don't get judged. I don't get all sorts of personal things commented on by a non-professional sponsor in ways that seem parental, directive, inappropriate as I see most people getting from their sponsors.
So I have my way, and my reasons. But AA isn't live and let live.
Someone tonight got judgmental with me; tried to take my inventory and was negative about me not having a sponsor or doing steps. Slightly derisive, but I was able to shut him down effectively before it got too far. But then later, after he'd left, I got ballistic about it. He really touched some nerves in me with very standard AA inventory-taking and passing some judgment.
I don't get it.
It seems like all these people are little AA robots with a bunch of simplistic rules and logic--logic that doesn't hold upon deep examination in many parts, where if you're not "with the program" just as you're supposed to be, it's means you're "dry," a euphemism for saying someone is f'd up. They seem like children, and yes, it bears similarity to a cult
I come from having my outside influence be under the mental health model, therapists and other sufferers, where you do not pass judgment on people. DO not tell them they're f'd up, do not tell them what they need to do, don't dig.
I go to meetings--I am an alcoholic per every definition (the Big Book talks about the kind that gets so severely scared in fear of loss of very important things in their life that they can stop--my experience is one of those) so I don't sit around my apartment and think about killing myself, that's how low my life is. Literally that is what gets me to meetings; my friend is sober 25+ years and severely depressed, too--he knows that's why I go and why he thinks I shouId go. I don't need some idiot (my age) with 13 fewer years of sobriety casting aspersions on me and how I'm coping. Why is AA this way? It seems like profound group inferiority (and group think) such as found with cults and cult-ish religions who engage in demonizing those not following their ways, particularly those who are “like” them in important ways. They tear down others, and G-forbid if you don’t follow chapter and verse the party line.
Do others know what I mean? People who don't buy into some of the AA basics, like that it's o.k. to stand in judgment of others? People who aren't in AA because of issues like this?
Are there people in AA out there with advice about how to tolerate some of this? I get many good things out of it, but once people start getting into my business, it's lost to me.
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out of my mind, left behind
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